Lions catching an impala

Posted on August 4, 2015 at 4:39 pm.

Guests visiting Pondoro on the 10th of July were extremely lucky to witness a pride of lions hunting and killing an impala ram. The usual strategy is for the group to wait in ambush while one female goes round to the back of the impala and try and chase them into waiting group. Only one out of 10 – 15 attempts are successful making seeing a successful hunt a rarity. Their low success ratio means that lions must be able to eat as much as possible when food is available and a male lion can therefore eat up to a quarter of his own weight in one sitting eg 50kg of meat. This impala was finished in less than 10 minutes with only the horns and a few bones left to tell the tale.